Chapter Text
When Angel woke that morning to screams, he found that while something was clearly wrong, he was simply too tired and hungover to bother caring or investigating.
Ignoring the strange jumbled discordant cacophany of yells and thumps and whatever else was happening outside of his door, he stumbled his way blearily to the bathroom, for once forgoing his needle in favour of his toothbrush, looking up into the bathroom mirror.
He blinked once. Twice.
An ashy-brown eye blinked back at him.
For a second, he didn't react. Then he screamed, and nearly fell over backwards, misplaced eye continuing to blink rapidly behind a veil of dyed blond and brown hair. They were how he remembered from his humanity, one still normal, the other an empty space of bloody raw flash, the eye completely gone. Still oh so disgusting. He shut his eyelid over the empty socket.
There was a sound of alarm from outside his door before it was shoved loudly open, hitting against the wall and almost flying from it's hinges. Charlie stood there, looking like she was having the most stressful day of her life, half bent over as she gawked at him.
"Oh, not you too!"
He glared at her, slightly hysterical already, turning back to stare in the mirror, scarred hands moving to fist into his long hair. "What the fuck is this shit?! What's going on?!" he cried out, anxiety pushing his voice's pitch up.
He was dressed as he had before he had died, and even his MAKEUP was the same, the bleeding eyeliner running down his cheeks with heavy dark eyeshadow. Thank god his makeup at least covered his embarassing freckles, though that was obviously the least of his concerns right now.
He was in a light pink pinstripe suit, a similarly designed trillby hat on his mop of hair, and a dark marroon bowtie sat at his throat. Two black half-palm gloves covered his fingers and a part of his hand.
It was so familiar, but so, so unexpected. What the fuck was happening? Why was he HUMAN again?!
Charlie bit her lip and grabbed him by the arm. He grimaced, feeling faded cuts and drug scars ache at her grip. He certainly hadn't missed those, and remembered being incredibly glad that scars didn't transfer when he first fell to Hell and attained his demonic form.
She dragged him outside, murmering something about getting everyone together, and as they walked he found himself balking at the sight of other humans, of varying age, in the halls and on the stairs and in doorways, shouting and fighting and staring at themselves. Evidently this had been the ruckus that had woke him up.
His mind swum.
When they reached the main room, he felt his jaw drop.
He recognised everyone, could tell who they were, perhaps just on instinct. Some were speaking at varying volume, which also helped in placing them.
Husk was downing alcohol at the bar as usual, though he somehow looked even more stressed than normal. He had combed back dark hair, nearly black, with some streaks of grey showing his age. His eyes were a dark shade of brown, and he just mainly looked like he wanted to die a second time. So not any different than the usual, honestly.
Vaggie was stood nearby, screaming something at a man in quite aggressive spanish, with her darker skin and light brown hair, grey eyes narrowed in frustration as she berated. Her attire wasn't much different than the usual, honestly, a shirt that slipped off her shoulder to expose her bra strap and knee high stockings.
The man she was shouting at was clearly Alastor, with his same large grin and red eyes, though his eyes were more coppery than the neon crimson Angel had become accustomed to (and infatuated with after he had developed his ridiculous crush on the man), and his grin was full of shining white teeth instead of gleaming gold. He was smartly dressed in a faded brown suit, and seemed a little awkward without his cane, stood strangely, as if with a limp. His hair was swoopy and chocolate coloured, and his hands, which were held in clenched fists, were an odd shade of pink, as if they had been repeatedly burnt, with small white scars overlapping the already marred skin.
Charlie, it seemed, was unaffected by all of this, which he supposed made some level of sense. She had never been a human.
Still.
"What the shit is going on?!" he shouted, and the room quieted as all eyes swivelled to pin him down. From the corner, he noted the presence of a short asian looking woman, with almond shaped black eyes and short curly black hair. She was grinning nervously and bouncing up and down. Strangely enough, her face seemed to be bruised slightly.
...Was that Nifty?
"Ah, you're 'ere!" Alastor exclaimed, and Angel blinked dumbly. The fuck was that accent? It was rather heavy, and somewhat french. Cajun? It was kinda hot... though hearing Alastor speak without a radio filter and generic accent was very odd and was still scrambling his brains even as it made his dick very happy. "Moi Cher, good of you to fin'lly arrive!" he made a sweeping forward gesture. "Come 'ere so i may explain!"
He almost said 'fuck no' and left, but this curiosity overrid his annoyance at being ordered to do something.
He walked over, and listened.